École Québec Monde

I’ve been studying French since middle school. I went to France for the first time, with my parents, when I was in high school. I got a kick out of ordering in French in restaurants and using French in the hotel. There were mistakes, of course. Like the time we ordered “douze escargots pour tout le monde” (twelve snails for everyone) and received twelve snails each. After that we quickly learned the word partager (to share). Another time, we wanted housekeeping to leave the curtains closed in our hotel room during the day and left a note that read, “Fermez les drapeaux, s’il vous plait” (Close the flags, please). We eventually realized the word we were looking for was not drapeaux but rideaux. Housekeeping surely got a good chuckle.

In college I double-majored in English and French and spent a semester studying in Montpellier, France. Later, while studying comparative literature in graduate school, I spent nine months doing research at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

Nevertheless, I’ve never quite mastered the French language. My college and graduate courses were focused on reading, so although I have a large vocabulary and a decent accent from spending a lot of time with French friends in France, there are certain grammatical structures I’ve never quite got the hang of, especially when I speak.

Hence my decision to spend two weeks studying advanced French in Quebec—much closer than France, a shorter plane trip, no jet lag, and less expensive, thanks to the exchange rate. But more important, I had always associated the French language with the history and culture of France. What would it be like to study French elsewhere? I wondered.

I found École Québec Monde through an Internet search.

It’s located in Quebec’s lower town, in the Saint-Roch district, about a fifteen-minute walk from the monastery, which is in the upper town. On the map, the monastery is in the pink section, next to the hospital, marked “H.” The school is in the middle of the yellow section, on the Rue Saint-Joseph.

During the orientation, I take a written and oral test and then go on a guided tour of the neighborhood with the other recent arrivals. Every Monday, new students start at the school, so each week I have different students in my class. The first week I’m grouped with a diplomat from Ottowa, who is preparing to move to Paris for four years; a retired accountant from Massachusetts, whose son moved to Quebec a few years ago; and a retired couple from Toronto. The instructor is a young woman from Quebec who teaches primary school during the year.